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• Meta’s top lawyer, Jennifer Newstead, is leaving to become Apple’s next general counsel.
• Newstead led Meta’s legal team through major regulatory battles, including an FTC antitrust win.
• Apple’s leadership reshuffle includes Newstead overseeing legal and government affairs.

Apple has hired Meta’s top lawyer, Jennifer Newstead, as its next general counsel, extending a broader reshuffle of the iPhone maker’s senior ranks.

Newstead will join Apple in January as a senior vice president, reporting to CEO Tim Cook, and is set to become general counsel on March 1, 2026, succeeding longtime legal chief Kate Adams, who plans to retire late next year, Apple said in a press release.

In the same announcement, Apple said Lisa Jackson, its vice president for Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives, will retire in late January 2026. Her Government Affairs organization will first move under Adams and then to Newstead after Adams departs, while Apple’s environment and social initiatives teams will report to Chief Operating Officer Sabih Khan — effectively putting both legal and government affairs under Newstead once the transition is complete.

The move is the latest in the leadership pipeline dance between Apple and Meta. On Wednesday, Meta poached Apple’s longtime human interface design chief Alan Dye, who is set to become Meta’s chief design officer at the end of the year.

Newstead’s jump to Apple means Meta is losing the lawyer who has overseen its most sensitive legal and regulatory battles for more than six years. She has served as Meta’s top lawyer since 2019, overseeing the company’s historic win against the FTC in November when a federal judge rejected the agency’s bid to force Meta to unwind its Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions.

At Meta, her remit has also included steering the company through fast-changing privacy rules, including cross-border data transfers in Europe and legal questions tied to content moderation and elections.

Before joining Meta, Newstead served as the State Department’s legal advisor, a Senate-confirmed role in which she led the legal team advising the Secretary of state on US foreign policy.

Business Insider obtained Newstead’s internal memo announcing her departure. Read it here:

Hi everyone –

I want to share with you that after six and a half years at this remarkable company, I have made the difficult decision to leave Meta at the end of this year to pursue my next adventure.

Serving as Meta’s Chief Legal Officer has been a privilege. I am deeply grateful to Mark for his visionary leadership, friendship, and trust in me to champion Meta’s cause. I’m also grateful to Sheryl Sandberg, for helping to recruit me, for her empathetic leadership and friendship, and to all my colleagues and friends in Mark’s leadership team, who guide the teams building the products that billions of people use and love.

I am proud of the exceptional work of Meta’s legal team. It has been an honor to work with colleagues of such talent and integrity. Your expertise and deep belief in the mission will continue to be foundational to Meta’s future.

I joined Meta in 2019 from the State Department after a long career in law, government, and policy because I believed in our mission and wanted to help the company navigate an important set of changes in the legal and regulatory landscape. Over the last seven years, we’ve hit many milestones, including our recent win in a historic antitrust trial. We have deepened our compliance culture and commitment to responsible innovation as we build for the exciting future ahead.

As for me, I will be joining Apple next year as Senior Vice President, serving as General Counsel and overseeing the Government Affairs function. This new role is a unique opportunity for me to continue shaping legal and policy issues around the world.

Thank you all for making this journey so meaningful. I look forward to seeing all that you achieve in the years ahead.

Jen